Gears of War 3 sells 3 million copies in first week

Franchise has made a billion dollars total

Hey everyone, guess what? The hugely hyped final game in a massively successful trilogy sold millions of copies! Seriously though, we knew Gears 3 would do well, but the milestone of selling over three million copies in the first week is pretty huge, and it brings the series’ total sales to one billion dollars. This means it has the best first week sales of any 2011 game so far, though we doubt it’ll hold onto that record for too long.

Above: A look at the massive worldwide launch for Gears

A couple things worth noting about that sales landmark: first, Microsoft says that’s three million copies sold to customers, not shipped to retailers, which is a subtle trick some companies use to inflate their numbers. And second, it hit that big a number that fast while being a console exclusive. Most games don’t get those type of sales when releasing on PS3, 360 and PC simultaneously. With multiplatform heavyweights like Arkham City, Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3 and Assassin’s Creed Revelations coming soon, Gears will probably lose the title of biggest week one sales in 2011 eventually, but we’d say it has a fair shot of having the highest launch week sales of a 360 game in 2011. See how much power comes with getting a 9/10 from GamesRadar? Just imagine how much it would have sold if we gave it a 10!